Casualty One Shots (Mostly Cal and Ethan)
by CasualtyFic
Summary: A bunch of random Casualty One Shots, mostly involving Cal and Ethan!
Lily shivered slightly and pulled her thick jacket a little tighter around her body. Small flecks of rain were beginning to pepper the ground, carried by the harsh winter wind. She looked up at the sky; a palette of greys. A background of soft, pale grey, almost white, lingering higher up than the other clouds. It looked almost like snow, had it not been for the wisps of darker colours swirled into the white. Underneath that, wispy charcoal grey clouds were scattered, a slight dark bluish tinge around the edges where the 'silver lining' should have been. How fitting, Lily thought bitterly.

She looked down at the gravestone in front of her. Grey, just like the sky. Grey, grey, grey. The colour of hopelessness, of pureness been tainted, of death.

The inscription on the gravestone was a slightly darker grey. The writing was swirly and pretty. Too pretty for a stone representing something as ugly as death.

 _'Ethan Hardy, 1986-2016. A great mind taken from us far too early.'_

Lily could have laughed. Who wrote this? _'A great mind taken from us too early'?_ It sounded so impersonal, as if Ethan was nothing more than some clever guy. Of course, he was, but he was also so much more than that.

In front of the grey gravestone were flowers. A display of bright colours; the yellow of a bright summers day, the red of a ripe ruby pomegranate, the blue of a sparkling sea. No grey. It looked so out of place in the graveyard. Most of the graves had fallen victim to mother nature, vines and ivy wrapping around the stones, strangling them. Ethan's grave was the only one still perfectly intact, and the only one with the bright flowers to show that at least one person still remembered him.

Lily slowly knelt down in front of the grave, not caring that muddy water was now seeping through her trousers and soaking her legs. She took a deep breath, trying to compose herself. She shut her eyes and tilted her head down, remembered when it happened.

No-one had noticed that anything had been wrong. No-one cared enough to simply ask him, 'are you okay?'. Once the news of him having Huntingtons had died down and everyone had lost interest in favour of more recent gossip, and he had been left to deal with it on his own. Cal had found a girlfriend and gotten sick of worrying over Ethan fairly quickly.

Lily had noticed Ethan becoming more and more quiet and introverted as the weeks had gone by, but whenever she tried to talk to him about it he would always push her away and insist that he was fine. In reality, he was anything but.

She should have noticed the signs. She should have tried harder to help him, but she didn't. And now this is what happened, and she hated herself for it.

It happened only a few months after he had been diagnosed with Huntingtons. Lily had just arrived at the ED, and was getting ready for the day when her phone rang, showing 'Ethan' on the screen. She frowned in confusion before answering; Ethan never usually called her.

"Hello?" She asked.

"L-Lily?" Ethan's muffled voice came. Lily's stomach dropped a little when she realised that he was crying.

"Ethan? What's wrong?!" She inquired anxiously.

"Lily, can you... Can you do me a favour? P-Please?" Ethan stuttered, a small sob escaping his throat.

"What's going on?" Lily asked, now extremely worried.

"N-Nothing... But I-I need you to do something for me. C-Can you call an ambulance-"

Lily cut him off, "What?! Are you hurt?!"

"No, I just need you to..." Ethan took in a shaky breath, "Call an ambulance and... And t-tell them that you... You found me d-dead. In my apartment."

"Ethan, what are you playing at?!" Lily half-shouted, not in anger but in fear.

"Please, Lily," Ethan was full-on sobbing now, "I-I can't have Cal come h-home and- and find me like that!"

Lily's heart dropped as she suddenly realised what was going on. Ethan was going to commit suicide.

"Ethan, stay right where you are, okay? I'm coming over now, please... Please don't do anything." Lily begged, grabbing her car keys and running out of the staff room.

"No, Lily, it's too late. P-Please, just call an ambulance for me, I-I can't let Cal find my body!" Ethan's voice grew quicker and quicker as his sobs became more and more frequent.

"NO! Ethan, I'm NOT letting you do this! Stay right where you are!" Lily yelled down the phone.

But a long beep indicated that Ethan had hung up. He was going to do it.

"Dr Chao, what on earth do you think you are doing shouting like that in the middle of a hospital?" Connie questioned, but stopped when she saw tears running down Lily's face.

"Ethan... Ethan!" Lily sobbed, unable to say anything other than his name.

"Lily, explain what is going on right now." Connie commanded, a worried frown on her face.

"Ethan... He's going to... To kill himself!" Lily cried, "I-I have to stop him!" She said, holding up her car keys.

Connie's face noticeably paled, and she gave a slight nod, "I'm coming with you."

Lily and Connie ran to Lily's car together, earning a lot of strange glances from their colleagues. Lily frantically sped down the roads whilst Connie called Ethan.

"Ethan? It's Mrs Beauchamp."

She received a muffled sob in response.

"Ethan, listen to me, don't do anything, okay? Lily and I are on our way now, just hold on until we get there, alright?" Connie urged him.

"N-No..." Ethan cried shakily down the phone, "D-Don't... C-Cal, he can't-" He let out a sob, "-he can't find m-my body, d-don't let him f-find me..."

"Ethan, don't do this. Think of Cal, think of Lily, think of everyone in the ED. Think of how much they all care about you!"

"Th-They don't! N-Nobody cares. I-I'm going to die early from Huntingtons anyway, j-just let me ch-choose how I want to die!" Ethan sobbed.

"We're here!" Lily said, immediately jumping out of the car and racing up to Ethan's apartment, Connie not far behind.

The door was unlocked, and they both ran in and went straight to where they had the horrible feeling he would be. They opened the door to the bathroom, and Lily immediately let out a bloodcurdling scream.

Ethan was lying curled up on the floor, surrounded by crimson blood that was pouring freely from his slit wrists. His phone was on the floor a few inches away from his limp hands. His face was white- too white.

Connie sprang into action, desperately groping for a pulse in his neck.

"E-Ethan..." Lily sobbed openly.

After a few moments, Connie shook her head and stepped back. To Lily's surprise, a few tears were running down Connie's face.

"He's gone, Lily. He's gone..." Connie mumbled quietly.

Ethan Hardy was dead.

With his death he had taken all of the colour out of Lily's life, leaving behind only grey.


End file.
